Washington (CNN) – Former Republican presidential nominees Bob Dole and John McCain are pushing back against Sen. Ted Cruz for comments he made Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

As Cruz was talking about how the Republican Party had not been successful in recent campaigns and what it needed to do to win, he said if “you want to lose elections, stand for nothing.”FULL POST

National Harbor, Maryland (CNN) – Potential Republican presidential candidates take the stage, hoping to generate a buzz. But the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC, has a lot more happening outside the massive, big-screened adorned ballroom where conservatives take the stage.

It's a conference where thousands of young Republicans from colleges across the country come to network and possibly meet Mr. or Ms. Right. It's a marketing bonanza for authors and organizations. It's a place to wear your favorite American flag underwear. This is CPAC - CPAC beyond the headline-making political speeches.

Washington (CNN) – Some advice truly is timeless. Some elections are extra special. Jeb Bush is looking hard at 2016, but many close to him have doubts. If you keep saying something over and over again and you are Joe Biden, does that make it true? And can "severely conservative" be topped?

(CNN) – Several Republican senators said Wednesday they were surprised and angered after a news report revealed that their GOP colleague, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, made a recent fundraising appeal for a tea party group that is trying to defeat GOP incumbents it doesn't believe are conservative enough.

The senators said Cruz's efforts appeared to violate his own pledge to no longer target sitting Republican senators in favor of tea party-backed candidates in the hard-fought 2014 campaign in which Republicans believe they have a chance to win back control of the Senate.

(CNN) - Conservative activist and rocker Ted Nugent apologized Friday for using the term "subhuman mongrel" to describe President Barack Obama.

"I do apologize–not necessarily to the President–but on behalf of much better men than myself," he said in an interview with conservative radio host Ben Ferguson, who's also a CNN political commentator.FULL POST

(CNN) - Texas Gov. Rick Perry is playing down a controversial campaign appearance for the Lone Star State’s leading Republican gubernatorial candidate by rocker Ted Nugent, who has stirred outrage with controversial comments about President Barack Obama.

"The idea that Ted Nugent has said something that's outrageous shouldn't surprise anybody. He's been saying outrageous things for a lot of years,” Perry told Wolf Blitzer on Thursday on CNN’s "The Situation Room.”

Beaumont, TX (CNN) – Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, questions whether global warming is real, arguing that the "data are not supporting what the advocates are arguing."

"The last 15 years, there has been no recorded warming. Contrary to all the theories that – that they are expounding, there should have been warming over the last 15 years. It hasn't happened," said Cruz.